Nigeria has awarded a $6.68 billion contract to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) for work on a major segment of a railway linking the country’s commercial hub Lagos, in the southwest, and Kano in the north, Xinhua reported.
“The signing of the … segment contract agreement today (Tuesday) concludes all outstanding segments of the Lagos-Kano rail line,” the Chinese state news agency quoted Nigeria’s transport ministry as saying. The work is expected to take two or three years.
CCECC, a subsidiary of Chinese state rail builder China Railway Construction Corporation, has been involved in other parts of the Lagos-Kano rail project, which started in 2006 and was broken into segments for implementation.
In 2016, Nigeria awarded it work on a segment between the northern states of Kano and Kaduna with a contract sum of $1.685 billion.
The railway line is also receiving funding from China. In April, China Exim bank approved a $1.231 billion loan for the network’s modernisation programme.
